Student, 8, brings loaded gun to Detroit-area school for 'protection'

INKSTER, Mich. (WXYZ) - Officials at a Detroit-area school confirm that a third-grade student brought a loaded 9 mm handgun to school two days in a row.

District officials tell Scripps sister station WXYZ in Detroit that the principal of Daly Elementary School in Inkster, Mich. was notified that the boy might have a gun. When the boy arrived at school the gun was recovered.

Inkster police say the boy told officers that he had the gun for protection and that he had brought it to school to scare three girls who were bullying him.

Police say the 8-year-old showed the gun to friends at school on Thursday. One of those friends went home and told his mother that the boy had a gun.

The mother went to the school Friday to alert school officials. That prompted school officials to search the boy and recovered the gun.

The 8-year-old boy was too young to be taken to juvenile detention and has been released to his mother, according to police.

Police are also investigating whether the boy snuck the gun out of his uncle's house.